The head of Belgian extended producer responsibility organization Valipac has urged a certification scheme to guarantee compliance within the new EU regime for exporting scrap.
Xavier Lhoir made the call as he addressed the plastic division session at the BIR Convention in Copenhagen. Under the revised Waste Shipment Regulation (WSR), he noted, exporters must demonstrate their scrap is being managed in an environmentally sound manner by ensuring independent audits were conducted on the facilities to which it was destined.
Lhoir said such a scheme could remain open to any independent third party with respect to WSR criteria and would guarantee a high level of quality and credibility.
Valipac has already conducted checks on plastic shipments from Belgium to OECD and non-OECD countries. Lhoir reported that eight out of 98 recycling facilities had failed to achieve compliance mainly through an absence of necessary licences, use of child labour and major environmental issues.
Roadmap
Details of Plastics Europe’s ‘roadmap’ for a sustainable plastics system were presented to the convention by its senior policy manager Dominic Byrne. Aims included making plastics more recyclable, driving lifecycle emissions to net zero and fostering the sustainable use of plastics.
Among the challenges presented by these goals, he highlighted the need for improved waste collection, further innovation in recycling and a supportive policy/regulatory framework. The estimated additional plastics system cost of this transition would be EUR 235 billion.
President Henk Alssema pointed to BIR’s recent position paper calling for mechanical recycling to remain the preferred large-scale approach and for chemical recycling to be limited to hard-to-recycle end-of-life plastics.
Co-operative
Byrne described the two options as ‘very complementary’ and, when looking to the longer term, did not expect chemical to overtake mechanical in the plastics recycling mix.
In response to a comment from Robin Wiener, president of the US Recycled Materials Association, on how the complex array of plastic compositions and additives made recycling impossible in certain instances, Byrne replied: ‘It is something we are working to improve upon. We do see design for recycling as key to that.’
Wiener emphasised that recyclers had a part to play in delivering greater sustainability and would welcome a co-operative approach.
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